Paula Swinford
Paula Swinford, director of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, “is a passionate advocate for the health of our students,” according to Dr. Larry Neinstein, associate dean and executive director of the University Park Health Center. Her job at USC is critical because, as she puts it, “Health issues make it harder for a student to be a student today.”
Paula is convinced that health promotion programs like Alcohol Edu really make a difference. In the last three years, this program is the one of which she’s the most proud. “Under Michael Jackson’s leadership, the implementation of Alcohol Edu for College as mandatory for all incoming undergraduates was a primary prevention strategy. It should cause an incremental shift in some of the assumptions about alcohol use at USC,” she says.
Those first few months of college are critical. Paula, who has a wealth of health-related statistics at her fingertips, recites this fact: 45 percent of students report drinking alcohol before they start college; that number has risen to 85 percent by Thanksgiving. That’s why Alcohol Edu, which provides “appropriate and accurate understanding of alcohol abuse,” says Paula, is so important.
Paula’s educational background and experience make her position at USC a perfect fit. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in community health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she was director of health education. Paula has been in her current position at USC for 20 years and earned a Master of Health Administration here. That became a defining moment for her, reinforcing the importance of administrative skills in the health profession.
Promoting health is essential to student success. She cites “national collegiate health assessment data that show specific health-related issues that create impediments to academic success.” When students are asked what has caused them academic difficulty, the results are not what you expect, says Paula. Number one is cold, flu and sore throat, followed by stress, sleep difficulties, concern for a troubled friend or family member and use of the Internet or computer games. Although alcohol doesn’t make the top 10, Paula points out that it does play a role in stress and sleeping difficulties.
That attention to assessment is vital, according to Dr. Larry Neinstein, associate dean and executive director of the University Park Health Center. “Paula has probably done more to follow the health status of USC students in an evidence-based manner than anyone else,” he states.
He singles out peer health education as one of her many contributions. “Paula started one of the first peer health education programs at a university in the United States and it’s currently one of the larger programs.”
When not working to keep USC students healthy, Paula says she spends most of her time raising her 15-year-old son. She is an avid reader who mixes non-fiction like The End of Nature by Bill McKibben with the latest Harry Potter saga. She enjoys making jewelry and has tried her hand at silversmithing. She also mentions “doing a lot for her professional association” as an “outside interest.”